Sunday, January 01, 2012

Regular readers will remember that I have been a 'have a go hero' and done some home-made film reviews before, but time has passed since then - and during its passing, I have watched a great many films (or "movies", for our friends in North America), that I now reflect upon for your edification and amusement.

OK. Here goes:

Midnight in Paris

WOODY ALLEN. Shut UP. I cannot describe the myriad of ways in which this film got bang on my tits. The one good thing about it is that the man who plays Hemingway is very handsome, but back on planet non-perv, I cannot imagine that anyone would go, "Oh I love Woody Allen's latest! It is modelled on a really refreshing conceit involving Owen Wilson and a time-travelling car containing misplaced American novelists!"

I tell you who likes this film. The type of people who go to Paris and buy Degas drink coasters and watch Masterpiece theatre, but don't read the New Yorker. That's who.

How To Train Your Dragon

Vikings (with Scottish accents) try and kill dragons. A young Viking (with an American accent) realises that the way to get on better with the dragons is to understand them, so he builds a tail for a black dragon that has eyes like a kitten and rides it around in the sky.

Next, they (the Vikings and the dragons) kill a massive dragon (which is like a gigantic hungry Queen Bee, but bigger) in a mountain and then all the Vikings ride dragons around for the rest of eternity.

I am not joking when I say that this cartoon is very good and I loved it a lot. You must watch it. Apparently in some parts of Denmark and the Outer Hebrides, people still ride their dragons to work.

Shrek 3

The only good bit is the cat and the gingerbread man, but neither reach the quality of their performances in Shrek 1, and I felt a narrative vacuum that could only ever be filled by the Three Blind Mice. This film is OK if you are drunk on a plane or with a lot of children.

Kung Fu Panda 1 & 2

No idea. Fell asleep within 3 minutes.

Contagion

The moral of this story is: "If you look like Gwyneth Paltrow, do not eat pork served to you by a smiling Chinaman." The other moral is "If you look like the ugly one out of Good Will Hunting, you are probably not susceptible to 97% of known viruses." Mildly exciting in parts but otherwise I wasn't sure what was happening and took photographs of Newfoundland and Labrador out of the window. Here is one of them:

Jane Eyre

This is really jolly good. I enjoyed it even though I knew what was going to happen and have read both The Madwoman In The Attic AND The Yellow Wallpaper. Rochester is hotter than a mosquito's tweeter and the bloke out of the film about the dancing Northern child is good as a stalkery vicar.

It is not a laugh a minute so do not go there if you think Downton Abbey is High Art, but do go there if you think (as I do) that Judi Dench is God and you wished (as I do) that you lived at the edges of a difficult moor.

The Help

Something tells me that I should be slightly ashamed that I enjoyed this so very much, but I did. I laughed, I cried, I cheered. I was drunk on a flight from Sao Paulo to Chicago. I am not sure that Gentlemen will like it much but they should, even if it is rammed to the rafters with that ghastly swelling American movie music that distracts you from feeling something that you are already managing to feel perfectly well by yourself.

Of Gods and Men

It is extraordinary and you should watch it.

Pride and Prejudice

I am talking the original and best one with Laurence Oliver and Greer Garson. I caught the tail end of one of those fuck-awful programmes about Jane Austen fans (they run around calling her Miss Austen or Jane which gets bang on my tits) at Christmas, and some bloke in glasses said it was the best one, and explained that it was an adaptation of a Broadway play. Whatevs. It's ace.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

In it, Steve Carrell gets new clothes and spends time with an ugly man with a 6-pack. It was good on a plane but I would not go to the cinema and pay money for it. I laughed a bit and thought quite a lot about how Steve Carrell is a bit like a Steve Martin de nos jours. Then I fell asleep.

The Hangover 2

Worth it for the bit with the gangster and what he says the monkey was doing to him in front of some 'videos'.

Cedar Rapids

A man has to go on a work conference and everything goes to shit. This does not sound promising but let me tell you, it is a good film that is funny and just avoids being mawkish at the end. I would not pay money to go and see it in a cinema but I would watch it on the computer or on the television. Or on an aeroplane. Which is where I saw it.

Bridesmaids

Not as funny as they said. Apart from the bit when she poos her pants in the street. That was funny.

The Change-Up

Absolute fucking nonsense. Do not bother, even if it is the last film in the universe.

Hanna

Finnish child assassins and God knows what else. Brilliant. I wished I had seen it in a cinema and not on the television. It is very beautiful as well as being quite exciting and sad.

The last Harry Potter film

Bobbins.

A couple of Narnia films

An ill-acted travesty. These films made me so cross my nose hurt. Liam Neeson as Aslan. I have never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. Whatever next? Swallows and Amazonswith Gwyneth Paltrow as Titty and Samuel L Jackson as Captain Flint?

OK that's it for now. Coming soon: some TV reviews. Who said this blog was dead? Not me.

7 comments:

So glad your blog is not dead.It's my favourite.It's putrid hot summer (38C) and for purposes of air-conditioning I just went to see The Iron Lady and Tower Heist. Iron Lady: fab. Tower Heist: silly fluff but tolerable for purposes of air-conditioning.

NO! nonono - please do not even whisper the faintest breath of an idea that might make Hollywood (or any of the ilk) muck with Swallows and Amazons. It is one of my last remaining unspoilt true books of my childhood and I couldn't bear if they made it all plucky-children-save-the-day with cheeky little precocious bastards... ugh.

Also - thank you for the timely review of Midnight in Paris which I'm being pressured to see. I loathe Woody Allen and all that he touches so now I can gently explain I'm afraid of tit-squashage due to exorbitant Allenness and duck out of it!

I LIKED Midnight in Paris, though don't ask me to tell you why (my usual approach to films & film criticism). I generally dislike the leading man, too. Ish. But I could stand him in this--I even liked him. I loved the woman who played Gertrude Stein (yes, yes, I know....I just can't remember her name). And Paris....just to go to a movie and see Paris. That's enough for me.